Hawkmistress! by Marion Zimmer Bradley

First published: 1982

Type of work: Fantasy

Themes: Animals, coming-of-age, gender roles, nature, sexual issues, and war

Time of work: The period of the Hundred Kingdoms

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: The planet Darkover

Principal Characters:

• Romilly Mac Aran, a fifteen-year-old girl with the gift of laran, or telepathic powers
• Mikhail Mac Aran, her father, a nobleman master of Falconsward
• Lady Luciella Mac Aran, Romilly’s stepmother, a kind but conventionally feminine woman
• Ruyven Mac Aran, Romilly’s eldest brother, the disinherited Heir of Falconsward
• Darren Mac Aran, Romilly’s second brother, who is made the Heir despite his fear of hawks
• Mallina Mac Aran, Romilly’s younger sister, who is content to play the conventional female role
• Rael Mac Aran, Romilly’s nine-year-old stepbrother
• Carolin, the rightful king, who has been exiled by the cruel usurper Rakhal
• Orain, Carolin’s foster brother
• Alderic of Castamir, a follower of Carolin

The Story

Hawkmistress! is a novel of the kind often called science fantasy. It is clearly fantasy, but because it deals with serious issues of the world, which can be perceived more clearly in an unfamiliar setting, it is also akin to science fiction. Like many of those works, the story involves adventures that are associated with the comingof-age of its central character, in this case a fifteen-year-old girl of noble family, Romilly MacAran.

At her home, Falconsward, Romilly has spent much of her time with hawks and horses, which are trained by the MacArans through telepathy, or laran, in which Romilly and her elder brother Ruyven MacAran are highly gifted. Unfortunately, Romilly’s father, Mikhail MacAran, wishes to force his children into conventional roles. Because the eldest son, Ruyven MacAran, wished to study at an academic Tower instead of remaining on the estate, Mikhail disinherited him and forced the gentle second son, Darren MacAran, who fears hawks, into his place as Heir and hawkmaster. Meanwhile Mikhail is making a lady out of Romilly, putting her into skirts, separating her from the hawks she loves, and planning her marriage to a domineering man whom she finds disgusting. In desperation, Romilly disguises herself as a boy and runs away.

As a fugitive, Romilly soon learns what it is to be without the security of home and family. Lost in the snow, she takes refuge with an old peasant woman; however, the safe haven becomes a prison when the woman’s son arrives and resolves to take Romilly as a servant and a wife. Realizing that she has no one but herself on whom to depend, Romilly attacks the son and escapes, planning to travel to the Tower where Ruyven is studying.

After several days in the wilderness, Romilly falls in with the supporters of Carolin, the rightful king, and becomes their hawkmaster. As they travel to the point where Carolin’s forces are gathering, Romilly is befriended by Orain, the king’s foster brother, who she suspects knows that she is really a girl. Unfortunately, she is mistaken. When he begins to make love to her, Orain is shocked to discover that she is a girl, not a boy, and turns away in embarrassment and revulsion. Now Romilly can no longer be even his comrade; she is expelled from the group of men and placed with another group of Carolin’s warriors, the Sisterhood of the Sword.

After a period of training, Carolin’s forces go into battle, depending on the telepathic gifts of Romilly and Ruyven. Now for the first time Romilly sees the horrors of war, not only the deaths of comrades and the destruction of the land but also the slaughter of the hawks and the horses which have been trained by her gift and some of which are sent to their deaths directly by her. When the fine horse she had trained and which had become almost her second self is slaughtered, Romilly loses her connection with reality and wishes only to flee from human beings. Only the loving care of her hawk Preciosa brings Romilly to her senses; then, gathering that Orain has been captured, she returns to Carolin’s army so that she can rescue her old friend.

The story ends with a reconciliation between Orain and Romilly and the promise of a future reconciliation between Romilly and her father. Alderic, who is the son of Orain, wishes to marry Romilly; however, she now realizes that she must first go to a Tower in order to learn how to restrain her gift. Romilly now realizes that her brother Ruyven was right: The gift, uncontrolled, is dangerous, perhaps most dangerous to the person who possesses it and who can so easily be possessed by it.

Context

Hawkmistress! is one of the novels in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series, which began with The Sword of Aldones (1962). The central theme of the series is Utopian, the question of whether an individualistic system such as that of the Darkovans or one like that of the invading Terrans, which is highly organized and technological, would be preferable. Even in the early period of Darkover described in Hawkmistress!, this issue is raised; Romilly is shocked by the usurper’s use of the napalmlike clingfire and of bonewater, which destroys all life where it is used.

The other themes of Hawkmistress! are seen consistently in the entire series. In The Shattered Chain (1976), Bradley points out the various kinds of bondage that the women of Darkover accept, without minimizing the price paid by those who, like the protagonist of Hawkmistress!, choose to rebel. In The Forbidden Tower (1977), she deals with problems of sexuality, in this case with a woman whose religious oath has doomed her to frigidity, even after she has left her duties, and with problems of communication, which is affected by sexual considerations, as Romilly found in her break with Orain.

Bradley is particularly interested in the predicament of the gifted woman. In the Darkover books, that gift is often telepathic. In Stormqueen! (1978), for example, laran enables the girl Dorylis to control nature; however, she has not learned to control herself, and like Romilly, she must discover the dangers associated with her gift. The price that gifted women must pay is also reflected in those of Bradley’s novels that are not part of the Darkover series. Perhaps the most admired of them, The Mists of Avalon (1982), tells the Arthurian story from the perspective of the pantheistic priestesses who were branded as witches by their new rivals, the Christian priests, who brought a male-dominated religion and sought a male-dominated society.

Whether she is considered as the creator of Darkover or as the interpreter of ancient cultures on this earth, Bradley is admirable for her originality, for the depth of her perception, and for her insistence on examining all the complexities of a human problem rather than rushing to judgment. Her characters are memorable and her plots exciting. As one of the best of her science fantasy novels, Hawkmistress! provides real intellectual stimulation for readers at an age when, like Bradley’s heroine, each of them must choose or shape a pattern for life.